What is your comment on the Atishi fast against water crisis?

In India dharna, agitation and street protests became too common during the UPA 2.0 (2009-2014) era when every project was stalled in the name of environmental clearance, farmers right, animal corridor, sensitive ecological coastline etc. Many andolan-jivi and dharna-jivi funded by NGOs (read foreign financed NGOs) started their career during this era like Arvind Kejriwal, Yogendra Yadav, Harsh Mandar, Medha Patkar, Teesta Setalvad, Prashant Bhushan , Sudheendra Kulkarni, Himanshu Thakkar (SANDARP who killed all hydro projects in Arunachal, Sikkim, Himachal etc.), SP Udaykumar (Koodankulam anti-nuclear agitation funded by Church in TN) etc. are just few names.

Bengal opposition leader Mamata Banerjee gained considerable weight during a 26 day hunger strike/fast at Dharmatalla, Kolkata during the anti-farmer Singur movement against Tata Nano plant in December 2006. She gave up fasting on 26th day after request from President APJ Abdul Kalam. This surprising weight gain had baffled medical practitioners (and people who closely follow her tantrums) till date. She played the victim card during the Singur movement and according to Deepak Ghosh who was once an IAS officer, she had fasted while secretly consuming lots of chocolate and sandwiches and these junk food led to weight gain. Deepak Ghosh in his two excellent books on her has thoroughly exposed her as a hypocrite and liar and terribly greedy for money. So far Mamata Banerjee has not dared to pursue the defamation case in the court against Deepak Ghosh. May be she does not have the courage to proceed against Deepak Ghosh as more skeletons may come out of the cupboards.

This way Mamata Banerjee became Mumtaz Bano

Following Mamata Banerjee’s footsteps, another urban naxalite Arvind Kejriwal started dharna and hunger strike on various issues from 2011-2013. He was leading Kabir and Paribartan NGO which were funded by Ford Foundation (Kejriwal himself admitted that) in New Delhi and was doing hunger strike on city slum and other issues. His frequent agitations was creating an anti-congress feeling in the minds of some people as he took up corruption issue in a big way. This indirectly helped BJP to come to power in 2014 but Kejriwal also managed to form Delhi state government in 2015.

Kejriwal’s dharna and fasting also followed Mamata Banerjee pattern. During the period 2011-2013, whenever Kejriwal started hunger strike and dharna and drank only water, he always drank it in a steel glass whereas there were many transparent glass glasses available also. Clearly he was drinking fruit juices, protein or health drink secretly. Kejriwal claimed to be diabetic and it is difficult survive on water during his long fast.

Kejriwal is a fraud character

Now in June 2024, AAP’s Atishi Marelna or Atishi Singh started fasting to get more water for Delhi. One should expect similar drama here also. The water crisis is impacting re-settlement and shanty colonies of Delhi more than upper and middle class colonies. These re-settlement colonies are major voters of AAP and she has to do something.